Chapter Text
“Bulma, listen to me, there are plenty of fish in the sea.”
Bulma lay on the floor, sprawled on a pile of pillows and blankets, her arms crossed over her face. Yamcha had cheated on her, again. They were in a fight, again. She was wallowing in self-pity, again. Her friends were here to comfort her, again.
A dozen of them were sitting around in pajamas in the living room of Bulma’s house, where a movie was playing on the theater-like screen that dominated the far wall. It was some kind of romantic comedy, though Bulma wasn’t paying attention to it. One of her friends had done her nails earlier, and she didn’t have the heart to tell her that they’d be destroyed again in a day or so. Working on machines would do that.
Chi-Chi wasn’t here, but that was because–
“Yeah!” Someone was speaking, probably Natalie. “I mean, sure Yamcha is hot, talented, funny, strong, famous, an athlete–”
“Natalie!” Bulma heard the sound of a pillow being thrown. “Oh my god, we’re here for Bulma!”
“–probably fantastic in bed.”
“Natalie!”
“Shit! Sorry!”
“Where were you even going with that?” someone else was shouting.
One of her friends from high-school, Claire, took her arm and pulled it off of her face.
“You need to dump his ass,” she said, leaning over Bulma. “Like yesterday.”
“We’re not speaking to each other,” said Bulma, miserably. “I think that counts.”
Another girl, Lenna, slapped her thigh. “Girl, you have got to stop taking him back–”
Lenna was cut off by the sound of the door opening.
It was Vegeta.
He had probably just come from training, both because he didn’t do anything else and because his bodysuit was torn to shreds. It hung low on his hips, his chest bare, and sweat glistened on his muscles, despite the cool air outside.
He started to say something, that he’d broken something in the training room, or perhaps that he’d broken the training room itself, but it was drowned out by Bulma’s friends.
“Holy shit, Bulma,” said one of them. “You moved on quick.”
“Yeah, what a smokeshow.”
“Hot damn.”
From behind Bulma, one of them catcalled him, the whistle sharp in the air. Thankfully all that did was make Vegeta squint in confusion, so maybe people didn’t catcall in space. However, having walked in on Bulma’s little pity party, he didn’t seem to know what to do. So he stood there, frozen in the doorway, looking annoyed.
“Who’s this?” asked Lenna, grabbing her by the shoulders.
“He’s, uh–” Bulma sat up, struggling to come up with a lie and failing. “He’s the alien war criminal who lives in my spare lab.”
“Alien war criminal?” one of the women asked, from behind them. “Is that like a roleplay thing?”
Vegeta seemed to realize he was being spoken about, and his eyes narrowed.
“What are all these women doing here?” he asked, dismissively, addressing Bulma. “Is one of you giving birth or something?”
“Vegeta!” Bulma shrieked. “What the hell?! Does someone here look pregnant to you?”
Vegeta’s right hand closed, the index finger extended. He was left handed, but she knew he used his right to point. Bulma rolled up from where she was sitting, stalked across the room and seized him by the arms, though not before he started to point at Claire.
“You single, Vegeta?!” someone called out, as Bulma wielded him out into the hallway, hoping that Claire hadn’t seen it. He went willingly, she would have had no chance of moving him otherwise.
Once they were past the entrance of the living room, she saw that the front door was open.
Gods, Goku had practically been a feral child and he had better manners.
“Single?” Vegeta asked.
“It means alone,” said Bulma.
“Then I am,” said Vegeta. “I broke the machines. Come and fix them.”
“You couldn’t wait until the morning?” asked Bulma, wondering why she was letting him live here, and not for the first time.
On the other hand, she didn’t want him wandering around Earth. Vegeta was caustic, abrasive, prone to solving his problems with violence, unsure of how living on this planet worked. All that and the man was so powerful that he was basically a walking nuclear bomb. She didn’t want him running into random humans on the street, and she especially did not want him to encounter Chi-Chi (who wasn’t speaking to her at the moment, on account of the whole Vegeta situation) or Gohan.
…there was something else though. He was the only one who thought Goku was still alive.
Hearing him talk about it, or more often, rant about it, gave Bulma hope that it might be true, even if she didn’t think it was possible. From a scientific perspective, at least. The planet had blown up.
“You’re not doing anything important,” he said, bluntly.
“If whatever you did can’t be fixed in five minutes,” said Bulma, equally bluntly, “you can wait until the morning.”
Vegeta made a noise of annoyance, but perhaps he recognized that he had no choice. “Fine.”
Bulma leaned back into the living room. “I need a minute,” she said.
Her friends erupted into a chorus of shrieks and salacious encouragement.
“Why are they screaming like that?” Vegeta demanded.
“They’re just happy,” said Bulma, gritting her teeth. “Come on.”
“What does–” Vegeta made a face. “‘Get it girl’ mean?”
“It means they want me to fix the machines too,” said Bulma, giving him a shove. “Let’s go.”
He stumbled, on the first step away, despite their difference in strength. Injured again. Pushing himself too hard. Bulma reminded herself that he had robbed her, threatened her, more or less tried to kill her. Murdered Yamcha and the others. She didn’t need to feel any sympathy for him.
Hell, she didn’t even like him, she was just keeping him here for the good of the planet.
It’s strange how different he was, though. Drawn inside himself and quiet. No more grandstanding, bombastic villain speeches or threatening the Earth. It was as if what happened on Namek had hollowed him out. He hadn’t demanded anyone fight him in months, which was either progress or a very bad sign. When he wasn’t sleeping he was training, and when he wasn’t training, he was studying star charts for his next trip into space to search for Goku.
If he even knew how to live without being Frieza’s slave, she wasn’t sure.
They crossed the lawn out to the secondary lab, and Vegeta walked behind her the whole way. Like he wanted to keep an eye on her, which was insane. Bulma wondered what he even thought she was going to do, and she mentally added paranoid to the list of Vegeta’s ‘endearing’ traits.
The lab was a mess. It looked like he’d blown the containment chamber apart, the door was bent outwards, half off its hinges. The training robots and the equipment that transformed out parts of the walls and floor were all trashed, in pieces.
“Have fun?” asked Bulma, as she surveyed the wreckage.
“No,” said Vegeta. “I need you to make it more dangerous. I barely feel like it's trying to kill me.”
“You think this is a five minute fix?” she asked.
“You think I know how to build a killer robot?” he demanded. “How long?”
“I don’t know,” Bulma said, quickly taking down a mental inventory as best she could, considering the devastation. “A week? Maybe two.”
“That’s too long,” said Vegeta. He practically spat the words out.
“Go to space then,” said Bulma, rolling her eyes. “See if I care.”
“I will,” he snapped out, and walked past her, down the hallway, towards the room he slept in.
Just ignore him, Bulma thought, though she was forced to admit that at least she would have something to do for a few weeks other than think about Yamcha. From down the hallway, she heard the sounds of Vegeta undressing, footsteps, running water. Whatever. At least he knew what a shower was.
Across the lawn, she could see her house. All the lights on, the cars of her friends in the driveway. It was so quiet out here that she could hear the TV and the music, their voices drifting up. She wanted to leave and go back to them, but she found she didn’t want to hear about Yamcha, have her relationships analyzed, be pitied, or listen to her friends talk about their happy marriages and their kids.
She decided it would only take five minutes to make a list of all the damage Vegeta had caused, and she could start fixing the place in the morning. That would clear her head, at least, and she picked up one of the broken panels and tossed it out onto the lawn.
How long she was working before she found the drawing, she wasn’t sure, but when she tilted one of the pieces of debris away from the wall, she noticed it. It was shockingly complex, especially considering that Vegeta must have drawn it by hand. It was done in drafting chalk, and Bulma realized she must have left some laying around. She couldn’t recall Vegeta asking for anything like that, and she vaguely hoped he hadn’t robbed some poor merchant in the city.
The chalk sketch covered a decent portion of the wall, and depicted a star chart, though Bulma couldn’t recognize any of the stars. There were handwritten notes next to some of them in characters she couldn’t recognize, and she wondered if it was the language of Frieza’s Empire or if the Saiyans had a written language.
Do Saiyans have last names? she wanted to ask, and a million other questions drifted through her head. Do they get married? What did their houses look like? How long does a Saiyan live?
It was insane to think that she had an alien living at her house, the socio-political development of the century, something that any other scientist would kill for, and that Vegeta probably wouldn’t have given a fuck about any of those questions. Nevermind that, she had walked on an alien planet, and–
“The hell are you doing?”
Bulma shrieked and nearly jumped out of her skin. She whirled around, Vegeta stood behind her, dressed in his armor. His hair still stood on end, despite being shiny with water from the shower. She had lost track of time, she realized.
“That’s fragile,” he snapped out as he stalked over. Bulma moved back as he approached, until he was between the mural and her. “Don’t touch it.”
“You can draw?” Bulma asked, even as she wondered why she cared.
“Anyone can draw,” he said, curtly.
“What is it?” asked Bulma.
“It’s a star chart,” he said, and despite the order not to touch it a second ago, he reached out and touched the wall with two fingers, spaced apart, to indicate distance. “A daal.”
Bulma glanced up at him. He was taller than she was, but only barely.
“An Imperial measurement of distance,” he explained. “It figures I would need to explain it to someone from this ass-backwards hunk of rock.”
“Eat shit,” said Bulma, crossing her arms. “What about the rest?”
Vegeta smirked, he gestured to the map. “The space relative to Namek’s former location.”
He pointed, one set of characters. “A place I’ve searched.” He pointed again, a different one. “A place I haven’t.”
“You drew this from memory?” Bulma asked. She wasn’t impressed. She wasn’t.
“How else would I have drawn it?” Vegeta asked, annoyed. “I can’t exactly log onto the Imperial datanet and ask if anyone’s seen Kakarot.”
“You really do think he’s out there,” said Bulma.
“I know he’s out there,” said Vegeta.
Bulma looked back to the map. “What are you going to do when you find him?”
“Fight him.” Vegeta shrugged. “Kill him, maybe.”
“Of course you are,” she said.
“I don’t know what you expected,” said Vegeta.
“Neither do I.” Bulma sighed. “Why these worlds? There must be millions of planets.”
“There are,” said Vegeta.
They were standing apart, but Bulma sensed him tense, set his jaw. He closed his fists and then relaxed them. Something to do with Frieza, then.
“You know, you don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to–”
“Don’t be stupid, woman,” Vegeta snapped, cutting her off. “I can talk about whatever I want. These planets are similar to yours. Passive indigenous life. No strong fighters. No dedicated warrior-caste.”
“...and Frieza was,” Bulma considered, “interested in planets like that?”
“They’re worth a fortune,” said Vegeta with a sort of forced calm. “Slaves.”
“I guess you would know,” said Bulma.
“I would,” said Vegeta. “Frieza’s ship was too damaged to fly, but if Kakarot found a working ship, it should have been pre-programmed with the coordinates of one of these worlds.”
“If these worlds are like Earth,” said Bulma, considered. “They might not have developed space flight, so if the ship crashed or was damaged, he’d have no way to fix it. Not to mention that he has no idea where Earth is, and they might not know either.”
“Congratulations,” said Vegeta, and he turned on his heel to leave. “You’ve figured out what I knew months ago. I’ll see you in two weeks. Fix my training room, woman.”
“Wait,” said Bulma, blurting the word out when he was almost to the door.
Vegeta paused.
“Take me with you.”
*** *** ***
What are you doing? Bulma chided herself as she threw clothes into a bag and hastily pulled it up over her shoulder. What are you thinking? Are you out of your mind? Do you have a death wish?
She took the stairs down from her room three at a time. Maybe Chi-Chi would speak to her again if she came back with Goku. Maybe Gohan would stop having nightmares. Maybe the Namekians would get some closure.
Hell, maybe Vegeta could find some kind of peace if he knew for certain that Frieza was dead.
“Bulma–!”
Shit. Right, her friends were here. Claire’s head poked out the living room door.
“Are you going somewhere?” she asked, looking Bulma up and down, confused.
“Claire,” said Bulma, taking her by the shoulders. “I want you to know that I missed your wedding because I was on another planet, helping to fight an alien dictator–”
“You missed my wedding because you were what–?!”
“–and I have to go back to space to look for Chi-Chi’s husband,” said Bulma. “You guys just enjoy the snacks and let yourselves out in the morning.”
“Are you seriously ditching your own party–?!”
“Vegeta’s going to leave without me if I don’t hurry,” said Bulma, letting her go and sprinting to the door. “Bye!”
She hurried outside and jogged across the lawn, and then around the building to where the ship was parked. Bulma half-expected Vegeta to do whatever the most dickish thing was, like take off as soon as she came around the corner, but the ship’s ramp was down, the engines idling. Taking a huge breath, she raised her foot and put it on the ramp. Quickly, she followed it with the other, and sprinted up into the ship before she could lose her nerve.
The ship was smaller than the one her father had built for Goku. There was the cockpit, a separate area to one side for sleeping, a small washroom with a shower. An area for preparing food and another for storage. That was about it, and when she saw the spray of Vegeta’s black hair above the profile of the pilot’s seat, she wondered if it was a good idea to be alone with him in a confined space. For any length of time, really.
“You actually showed up,” he said as he punched the controls. He didn’t turn to look at her.
The engines spun up. The ramp retracted behind her. Her window for backing out was rapidly shrinking. Bulma gave the lights of her home a brief glance, then turned back.
“I thought you would take off without me,” she admitted.
“I’m only letting you tag along because I want someone there to witness my power when I defeat Kakarot,” he said, in return.
“Kami,” she said, sliding into the co-pilot’s seat. “You’re like a dog with a bone.”
“I’m like a what?”
“Nevermind.” Bulma dumped her bag off her shoulder, to one side of the chair. “Let’s go or I’ll lose my nerve.”
Vegeta didn’t give her another warning. He hit the engines and they roared to life. In another second, the ground was spinning away beneath them, there was turbulence, the glare of the atmosphere in the observation windows, and then Earth was a glittering blue marble in the distance.
He almost immediately reached for the gravity controls, then thought better of it. Instead, he started programming the auto-pilot and they sat in silence for what seemed like forever. Bulma passed the time by playing with her phone, though there was no signal, of course. Vegeta sat in the pilot’s chair, eyes closed.
“What do you normally do on these trips?” Bulma asked, after some time had passed. A few hours, maybe.
“Train,” he said.
She wondered why she had been expecting anything else. “How long is the flight?”
“Forty hours with the new engines,” he said.
“Are you going to scowl at a picture of Goku and do pushups the whole time?” Bulma asked.
“No point in normal gravity,” he said.
“How many–”
Vegeta glanced at her, sideways.
How many planets have you been on? she wanted to ask. How many years did Frieza have you for? What did he do to you to make you like this? How big is Frieza’s Empire? Isn’t it absolute chaos out there? Are people going to come after us? Gohan is six years old, do you understand that?
“Tell me about this planet,” she said, instead.
“It’s called Aviaar,” said Vegeta. “Oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. Earth-like gravity. Pre-industrial.”
“There must be more–”
“I already told you the rest,” he said, visibly annoyed. “No strong fighters. No way to resist an invasion.”
“If we’re going to be on the ship for almost two days,” said Bulma, equally annoyed, “maybe you should learn to have a polite conversation. You must have talked to Nappa.”
He tensed, visibly, at the mention of Nappa’s name. Shifted in his seat, set his jaw.
Oh, come off it, Bulma thought. You murdered him.
“We had separate ships,” he said, at last. “You must have known that. You stole one of them.”
“It’s not stealing if someone is invading your planet,” Bulma retorted. “Why did you kill him?”
“I didn’t,” said Vegeta, shrugging. “Kakarot killed him.”
“Are you fucking delusional?” Bulma asked. She immediately regretted antagonizing the horribly powerful alien war criminal, especially since she was locked in a confined space with him with nothing but the death-cold of the void outside.
“No.” Vegeta’s lips curled up, showing off his pointed teeth. “I’m not. His neck was broken. If I had brought him back in the state he was in, Frieza would have forced me to kill him. Probably slowly.”
“You–”
“Anything else you need spelled out for you?” Vegeta snapped the words out, baring his fangs. He half-rose, leaning over the armrest of the pilot’s chair. Bulma flinched back. “Do you want to pester me about the things Frieza did to me when I was a child? Do you want to chat about the slave trade in the Imperial City? Do you want to know what happened to women–”
There was nothing to do but call his bluff. Bulma tilted her chin up, met his eyes.
“Yes,” she said.
“The hell you do,” he said.
“Maybe you should try talking to another person instead of locking yourself in the training room, decapitating robots, and obsessing about Goku,” she said. “It might do you some good.”
“I’ve tried talking to you,” said Vegeta, “and it’s done nothing but annoy me. This was a huge mistake.”
“I’ll say,” said Bulma.
Vegeta’s eyes searched her face for a second, and then he rose from the pilot’s chair. He went to the back, opened the door to the storage compartment, and went inside, closing it behind him. Bulma wanted to follow him, if only to get the last word in, but common sense won out. Instead she sat in the co-pilot’s chair, arms crossed, alternatively worried and fuming.
All the same, she doubted he would do anything drastic. It wasn't the first time they’d clashed verbally and she doubted it would be the last. He could have killed her back on Namek or, quite frankly, done anything else he’d wanted to her, and he hadn’t. In fact, Bulma thought it was far more likely that he’d hurt himself.
Still, she wasn’t going back there to comfort him. He wouldn’t care anyways, and what a waste of time that would be, both of them screaming themselves hoarse in space.
Instead, she retrieved her laptop from her bag, went and got herself a drink, and sat down to program death robots. Ostensibly for Vegeta, but partially for the challenge of it. She worked like that for a few hours, until she was too tired to keep her eyes open. Sure, it was true that space didn’t have a day/night cycle, but had already been late when they left, and Bulma yawned, stretched, gave the door to the storage room one last glance, and then crawled into the bunk and fell asleep almost immediately.
Bulma wasn’t sure how long she slept, but when she woke, Vegeta was sitting cross-legged on the floor, not far from the edge of the bunk, his back to her.
At first, Bulma was sure she was imagining it, and she rubbed her face with one hand.
No, he was definitely there and he was uncomfortably close to the bed.
“What the hell are you doing?!” The exclamation came out a bit more shaky from sleep than she had intended, and Bulma struggled up into a sitting position.
“We can’t both be asleep,” he said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world and she was an idiot for not getting it. “Even the most primitive sailing ships work that way.”
“I know that!” Bulma barked out. “I mean what the hell are you doing in here?”
“I–” Vegeta began, but no rude retort followed it up. He didn’t seem to think he had done anything wrong. For a moment, it looked like he wanted to explain himself, then it was gone. He scowled and started to rise.
“Wait,” said Bulma. “Tell me.”
“We were all alone,” said Vegeta, bluntly. “We had to watch each other’s backs.”
“In the Frieza Force?” she asked.
He nodded.
“He’s dead, Vegeta.” Bulma rested her arms across her knees. “The planet blew up.”
“Not until I see his body.” Vegeta stood. “I’m going to check the auto-pilot.”
“When was the last time you slept?” Bulma asked.
“Thirty or forty hours ago.” Vegeta shrugged.
“No wonder you’re glowing with health and in such a cheery mood.” Bulma stood and stretched her arms above her head. “Get some sleep. I’ll check the auto-pilot.”
“I don’t need–”
“So help me Kami,” said Bulma, “I will kick your ass.”
Vegeta snorted. “As if you could ever–”
“It’s actually gonna be real easy once you collapse from exhaustion,” Bulma said, crossing her arms and stalking past him. “You had better be in that bunk and asleep by the time I get back.”
She heard him muttering something under his breath but ignored it.
In the cockpit, she sat down in the pilot’s chair and checked the controls, the ship’s scanning instruments, and then the auto-pilot. The chair, and the ship, had been used so much that there was a groove the shape of Vegeta’s body in the cushions, and she made a mental note to replace them both once they were back on Earth.
Rising, she went back into the bedroom, which was more like a half-partitoned area with a bunk in it. Vegeta lay on the bunk, on his back, arms folded over his stomach, eyes closed. Bulma sat down on the floor, opposite him, and opened her laptop, resting it over her knees.
“What are you doing?’ Vegeta asked. He didn’t open his eyes, and now, Bulma heard the exhaustion in his voice.
“I’m programming death robots to kill you with,” said Bulma, “and trying to find a way to increase the gravity threshold of the training room so that it hurts the whole time you’re dying. Rest up.”
“You’re useful for something, at least,” he mumbled.
“Fuck you, Vegeta.”
“Fuck you too.”
*** *** ***
They did one more rotation of one person sleeping with the other awake before they arrived, and while Bulma prepared a meal, she wondered what Vegeta ate when he was out here alone. He certainly couldn’t cook for himself, but at the very least, he was like Goku in one respect, he would eat anything you put in front of him without complaint.
During the trip, they only spoke occasionally, but there were no more outbursts, thankfully. Bulma worked on her laptop, Vegeta quickly grew bored and restless enough that he decided to work out, normal gravity be damned.
“There should be some kind of lasers that come out of the walls,” Vegeta said as he did pushups one-handed.
“Mmmm,” said Bulma, who was sitting at the table in the ‘kitchen’, drafting a new layout for the training room. “You want a lava floor too?”
“Yes,” said Vegeta.
“Well, if we see any lava for sale out here, we can pick some up,” said Bulma. “Homing lasers?”
“Oh, hell yes.”
“You know, I could–” Bulma began, but was cut off by a chime from the autopilot. They were there.
Slamming her laptop closed, Bulma rose and went to the cockpit. Vegeta righted himself by flying instead of by standing up normally, and she wondered who, exactly, he was flexing for.
The planet, Aviaar, was definitely Earth-like. There were green continents and wide, dark blue oceans. Even from space, Bulma could see great expanses of pink forests near the equator and purple ones to the north and south. Allegedly, the world was pre-industrial, and the skies shone brilliantly, completely clear of pollution.
“Holy shit,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”
“It’s just a planet,” said Vegeta, as he slid into the pilot’s chair and took the controls.
Bulma rolled her eyes and went to pack as Vegeta guided the ship down. There was a brief vibration, turbulence in the atmosphere, and then they were flying. As he looked for a landing site, she changed into traveling clothes, laced her boots, gathered up her toolbox, and slid a set of capsules into her backpack. Vegeta’s presence aside, it felt incredibly good, like she was setting out on an adventure again, and it felt far better than crying her heart out in her living room.
Maybe Goku would be close by, drinking tea with some new alien friends just a few miles away. He’d be so shocked when he saw her, then he’d smile and laugh and wave like nothing was wrong. Bulma would give him an earful, but ultimately it would be a happy ending to cap the last two years off with. Chi-Chi would forgive her, Gohan would have his father back.
Of course there was the nagging problem of Vegeta, but Bulma tried not to worry about that too much. Goku could deal with him.
She was practically bouncing on her heels as the ship landed, and as soon as the safeties showed green, she hit the button for the ramp and descended it in three huge, leaping steps.
Honestly, fuck Vegeta, the planet was gorgeous.
They were a good distance from any settlements, in a clearing in one of the purple forests, and the trees were so large that Bulma thought they must have been growing for centuries. The sky was blue, but it had a pastel cast to it that wasn’t present on Earth, and the ship’s landing had disturbed a flock of hawk-like birds with tailfeathers nearly as long as Bulma’s body. They made a riot of color as they ascended into the sky, and she could not help watching them until they were out of sight.
She took a step forward and then another–
“The fuck are you doing?!” Vegeta called out.
Bulma turned. He was standing at the top of the ramp.
“He’s not here,” said Vegeta. “Let’s go.”
“The fuck are you talking about!?” Bulma clenched her fists. “I thought we were looking for Goku!?”
“Kakarot isn’t here.” Vegeta crossed his arms. “There’s no point in staying any longer.”
“How could you possibly know that!?” Bulma demanded.
“You–” he started, then seemed to consider something. “Right, you weren’t there. I can sense energy now.”
“Congratulations,” said Bulma, rolling her eyes.
“So I would know if Kakarot–”
“Not if he’s hiding his power level,” said Bulma. “Or what if he’s unconscious, or in a coma?”
Vegeta hesitated.
“Seriously?” It was Bulma’s turn to scowl. “You’ve never even shown people a picture of him? Asked anyone if they’ve seen any Saiyans running around?”
“Why the hell would I have a picture of him–?!”
“Do you actually want to find Goku, or are you scared of getting your ass kicked inside-out again!?”
“How dare you call me a coward!” Vegeta’s expression twisted in rage. “If you weren’t a woman, I’d rip your fucking spine out!”
“Oh, get over yourself, your majesty!”
“Eat shit!”
“Fuck you!” Bulma turned away, her face was hot, red from yelling, and she took a capsule from her pack and flung it down. There was an impact in the air, a rush of wind, and the hum of partial transformation as the motorcycle exploded outwards and took shape.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?!” Vegeta called out, still at the top of the ramp.
“To look for Goku,” Bulma said, hooking her leg over it to position herself in the seat and taking the handlebars.
“Alone?” asked Vegeta.
“I guess I have to,” said Bulma, pulling her goggles down over her eyes. “Kami knows you’re useless.”
“What if you get yourself killed?” he asked, practically snarling the words out.
“Have fun explaining that to Picciolo, Gohan, and my father,” said Bulma, shrugging.
“Insufferable woman.” Vegeta rolled his eyes, but he took one step down the ramp, and then another.
“You are not coming along dressed like that,” said Bulma.
“Dressed like what?”
“If the Frieza Force really was all about putting their collective boots on the throat of the universe,” said Bulma, “I can’t imagine anyone is going to give us a straight answer if you’re parading around in that uniform. They might even try to hide Goku from us if he’s injured.”
“I don’t have any other clothes,” said Vegeta.
“There are some in the storage room,” said Bulma. “Go change, if you want to come.”
For a moment, he stood on the ramp, visibly weighing his options.
“Give me a minute,” he said, at last, and vanished back inside the ship.
Bulma considered driving off without him, but that would be pointless. For one, he could fly faster than the motorcycle could drive, and besides that, for all his dickishness, back at her house, he had waited for her so she could come along.
Vegeta reappeared after a few minutes, and he was dressed surprisingly appropriately. Slacks, walking boots, a blue t-shirt that was tight enough against his body that his impressively cut muscles stood out underneath it. When he wasn’t trying to murder people or being a complete asshole, she realized that Vegeta was shockingly hot–
The fuck is wrong with you, Bulma chided herself. What the actual fuck is wrong with you?
“Get on,” said Bulma, revving the engine.
Vegeta regarded the motorcycle as though it was some kind of torture device. “Why the hell would I do that?”
“Because no one is going to want to talk to us if you’re flying around, showing off, and blowing out people’s windows with your aura like a goddamn psychopath,” said Bulma. “Get. On.”
Vegeta scowled, but he pushed up off the ground, flew over, and landed behind her on the bike. It was not exactly roomy, and his thighs brushed against hers– don’t fucking think about it.
“Walking three steps was too difficult?” Bulma asked, glancing over her shoulder.
“Don’t push your luck, woman.”
“Where’s the nearest settlement?” Bulma asked, deciding not to.
Vegeta pointed and Bulma turned the bike in that direction and took off, driving as quickly as she thought was safe considering the unknown terrain. It was not long before they came to a road between the trees, and she gunned the engines. Vegeta sat behind her, arms crossed, leaning against the back of the seat, and as the forest thinned out, Bulma could see a city below them, situated at the bottom of a gentle slope.
Most of the buildings looked like they were made of blue-gray stone, and though it was a distance away, they all looked roughly human sized. There were no factories in sight, but brilliantly colored fields of plants she couldn’t identify were clustered around the river, and more grew in tiered gardens. Rows of brightly colored pennants were strung between the buildings, drifting in the wind. There were a few larger constructions that looked like they could be temples, and a palace of smooth white stone perched at the mouth of the river.
The palace looked completely different than the other buildings, as though it was–
“Stop the vehicle,” said Vegeta.
“What–” Bulma glanced back at him. “Why?”
“I said stop!”
Bulma hit the brakes, turning the bike slightly as they skidded to rest at the side of the road.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Frieza built those kinds of buildings,” said Vegeta. “Imperial standard construction.”
There was no need to ask which one he was talking about, and Bulma glanced at the white stones of the palace. The oddly featureless face of it, the strange, bulbous towers.
“Can you sense anyone?” Bulma asked.
“No,” said Vegeta.
She turned in the seat, to glance at him. “Could they have learned to hide their energy?”
“I seriously doubt it,” said Vegeta.
“Then we have to go down,” said Bulma, almost excited. It was impossible not to think of this as a lead. “If they’re gone, maybe Goku landed here and defeated them all already. Drove them off the planet or something.”
“No,” said Vegeta. “We don’t. You need to go back to the ship and wait for me.”
“What?” asked Bulma. “You worried about me?”
“Worried about you getting in the way, maybe.”
“I’m not leaving or running off to hide,” said Bulma. “I’m going to find Goku. You can tag along if you want.”
“Fine,” said Vegeta, grinding his teeth, “but don’t blame me when you get eviscerated by a stray ki blast, woman.”
“Of course I’m going to blame you,” said Bulma, and Vegeta made a noise of frustration. She turned the bike back onto the road and headed down the hill towards the city, the fields and gardens whipping past on either side of them. Just outside the city walls, she pulled the bike to a stop and pushed her goggles up onto her forehead.
Hanging from the gate were the dead bodies of three men, or at least what was left of them. Two of them were about human size, and the third was three or four times that large. Even with how badly decomposed they were, she could see the off-white of their Frieza Force armor, still clinging to their bodies. The corpse in the center of the grisly display was wearing a cape, and the garment was in shockingly good repair considering how long they must have been out here.
“Anyone you know?” Bulma asked.
“The one in the middle is Qjaah,” said Vegeta, glancing up at them. “Was Qjaah.”
Bulma glanced at him.
“One of Frieza’s governors,” he said. “A high-ranking officer. Anyone’s guess who the other two are, probably Qjaah’s cronies.”
“You don’t seem too broken up,” said Bulma.
“It’s about what they deserve,” said Vegeta, dismissive.
“How’s the view from that glass house?” asked Bulma. She turned the engine off and swung off the bike, kicking the stand down in the same motion.
“What?”
“Nothing,” said Bulma. “Goku didn’t do this.”
“Not exactly Kakarot’s style,” said Vegeta as he climbed off the bike. It was more awkward than Bulma had expected, but she supposed that when you could fly, there was hardly any point in learning how to drive. “Ready to leave?”
“No,” said Bulma. “You?”
“Qjaah wasn’t completely incompetent,” said Vegeta. “I want to see who killed him. Might be a decent fight.”
Beyond the gate, the city was far more cosmopolitan than Bulma would have imagined for a pre-industrial world. She was not sure what the indigenous people of Aviaar looked like, but she saw aliens of all stripes, including more than a few who looked completely human. Some of the buildings were using crude technology to generate power, the machines probably scavenged from the palace that Frieza’s men had built. Somewhere in the rows of market stalls and buildings, a radio was playing music.
“Slaves,” Vegeta explained, as they passed beneath the gate. “Qjaah probably brought them here when Frieza gave him this planet.”
“To do what?” asked Bulma, craning her neck as she looked around, trying to see everything. Overwhelmingly, the population of the city was female. There were a handful of male children, but that was it. Vegeta stood out like a sore thumb, but that was typical of him.
“Farm, clean the palace, cook food for him.” Vegeta shrugged. “Service his soldiers. They must have escaped when he was killed and the people here took them in.”
“They’re all women,” said Bulma.
“That’s usually who’s left after the army’s gone,” said Vegeta.
“Did you ever–?”
“No,” said Vegeta.
Bulma glanced at him.
“Because I find it repulsive,” he said. “Let me know when you’re done sightseeing.”
“I’ll be sure to,” said Bulma, and glancing up the road she went up to one of the market stalls. With one hand, she fished her phone out of her satchel and flicked through the photos until she found one of Goku. He looked so young in it, and Gohan was sitting on his shoulders, smiling happily. Vegeta followed, a few steps behind, glancing warily at the sky.
“I’m looking for my friend,” she said to the alien woman, switching languages and holding the phone out to her. “Have you seen him?”
The woman shook her head, then looked up at Bulma. “Did you two escape from Frieza?”
“We did,” said Bulma. It was close enough to the truth.
The woman glanced over Bulma’s shoulder, to where Vegeta was standing a few feet away, a step or two into the road, arms crossed, his expression terse and annoyed. “Your husband?”
“What?” Bulma burst out laughing. “No. Gods, no. He’s my, uh, he’s my bodyguard.”
It was a repeat of that, or near to it, with everyone she talked to. Farmers, fisherwomen, escaped slaves, priestesses, and merchants. This was the capital, the biggest city on the planet, everyone came here, but no one had seen Goku. Oh, but hadn’t she heard? Frieza was dead. By his brother’s hand, or his father’s, or he’d been murdered by some upjumped officer, or strangled by one of his concubines. The Empire was collapsing without him, it was chaos out there, and these were interesting times indeed. Was she listening to the Imperial broadcasts? No, no one had seen the Emperor’s body, why was she asking?
By the time the sun was going down, Bulma was frustrated, exhausted and no closer to finding Goku than she had been back on Earth. She was arguably further away from finding him if you considered the amount of time this had taken. Privately, she wondered if they should have left right away, like Vegeta had said back on the ship. He’d probably be able to search a dozen planets in the time it would take her to question everyone in the city.
“Finished wasting time?” Vegeta asked, as they were walking towards the gate.
“Yes,” said Bulma. “I’m surprised you stuck around all day.”
“I like being proven right,” he said. “How did you learn to speak Imperial Common?”
“There was a language primer on the hard drive in Raditz’s scouter.” Bulma rolled her eyes. “How long do Saiyans live?”
“About a century, give or take.” Vegeta glanced at her. “How did you get the Dragon Ball back from the bottom of the ocean?”
“I piloted a mech down there,” said Bulma. “Killed some giant crabs. Not my first monster-killing outing. Is the Saiyan language verbal only, or is there an alphabet?”
“Alphabet?” He mangled the word, something lost in translation.
“Letters,” said Bulma, and she mimed writing in a book.
“There are letters,” said Vegeta.
“Teach it to me,” said Bulma.
“Why?” he laughed, bitterly. “Who the hell would you even speak it with?”
“Research, I guess.” Bulma shrugged. “I’d say you’re the first alien I’ve ever met, but if you think about it, that was technically Goku–”
Vegeta’s eyes narrowed, and he turned his head away, glanced up at the sky.
“What?” asked Bulma. “Are you mad that he was first at that too?”
“Cover your eyes,” he said.
“What? Why–?”
That was all she got out. The bomb, if that’s what it was, didn’t hit the city directly, or she would have certainly been killed instantly by it. Instead, it hit the woods to the north, and if Bulma had had time to form a single rational thought, she would have realized it had been aimed at the ship they arrived in. She flinched away, trying to shield her face, and Vegeta grabbed her by the arm, pulled her against his chest. His auras flared out in a corona of light as the shockwave washed over them.
Even facing away, with her eyes closed, she could see the glare of it, and it rained dust and stone, ash from the vaporized trees. Windows shattered, and buildings cracked on their foundations. To Bulma it seemed to go on forever, and then Vegeta turned, looking up towards where the woods used to be. There was a silver line cut across the sky, but even Bulma knew what that was. A starship, the kind they used in Frieza’s Empire, and a dozen other parallel lines cut the sky apart as more ships translated in. She had seen it before, back on Namek.
“Shit.” Vegeta hissed the word out.
He was completely untouched, and so was Bulma, shielded by his auras and his body. The rest of the people on the street hadn’t fared so well. There was rubble everywhere, broken glass, smashed wooden stalls. The strings of pennants were torn down or simply gone, and at least a dozen people that Bulma could see lay unmoving in the street, grievously wounded, maybe dead.
“Hide somewhere,” said Vegeta, letting go of her. “Don’t get yourself killed. I need you.”
Bulma stared up at him. “You what?”
“To hijack a ship,” he said, and he pushed off the ground. “Ours just got blown up.”
“What ship!? Vegeta! Don’t you dare leave me alone here–!” Bulma grabbed for him, missed, and then he was out of reach, a contrail of light following him as he vanished over the horizon in the direction the impact had come from. Gone.
“Shit.” Bulma hissed the word out.
Everywhere around her, people were trying to sort themselves out, aiding the injured, trying to rescue people buried under the rubble. Bulma considered doing what Vegeta had told her to do, running away and hiding, for less than a second, and she jogged up the street to the nearest group of women.
“I can help,” she said.
“We have to get the injured somewhere safe,” one of the alien women was saying.
“Into the Palace,” another was saying. “Behind the walls, close the gates.”
That was almost certainly not going to help them if soldiers from the Frieza Force really were here to kill them all, but Bulma didn’t bring that up. She fished her capsule case out of her backpack and selected one of them, deploying it into the street. There was a pop and a rush of air, and the capsule transformed out into a small medical station.
“Are you a witch?” one of the women asked.
“An engineer,” said Bulma. “There are stretchers here, other things we can use. Come on.”
To Bulma’s surprise, no one seemed to be in charge, and the women all worked together to help the wounded and move them onto the grounds of the oddly-shape white palace building. It was untouched by the force of the bomb, but she supposed that made sense. It had probably been built to stand up to all kinds of energy shockwaves, considering the power levels of the people in the Frieza Force.
Speaking of shockwaves, they were occasionally visible on the horizon, and each time one went off it sent the people in the city into a panic, though Bulma would have recognized Vegeta’s blue-black auras anywhere. She wanted to reassure them it would be okay, because if Vegeta could be trusted to do anything, it was to eviscerate Frieza’s soldiers, but she didn’t want to give up his identity. She didn’t know how these people felt about Saiyans, and she was far more concerned for their safety than she was for Vegeta’s.
While the priestesses tended to the wounded, Bulma deployed one of her cars and drove around the city, using the headlights to navigate though the darkness, looking for anyone too injured to walk and driving them back to the palace.
She went though most of the capsules she had packed, deploying food and water, emergency supplies, shelters, portable generators, almost anything that wasn’t a vehicle, with virtually no thought to try and preserve them. There were more on the ship, a standard loadout for handling serious emergencies, and she doubted Vegeta had ever used them, but they probably hadn’t survived the impact.
On the subject of Vegeta, he didn’t return, and the more time that passed between his departure and ‘now’, the more worried she got. From time to time, there would be a streak of light overhead that lit up the courtyard of the palace, but it was never him. It was disheartening to think how little they mattered. Whoever it was from the Frieza Force hadn’t shown up at the palace to kill them all because they could do that at their leisure. It wasn’t like the women here could even run away to escape them, and it made Bulma’s spine crawl with a sort of helpless terror.
Do you want to know what happened to women–
No. Bulma told herself. Don’t. That’s not going to help you.
…and neither was Vegeta, apparently. He was gone and there was no indication that he was coming back. Other than the fact that he couldn’t hotwire a starship.
Nice to be needed, you piece of shit.
On the other hand, she wished desperately that he would come back, tell her that he’d murdered all of the (other) dangerous alien fascists, append that with one of his stupid rants about Goku, Super Saiyans, and ‘power levels’, and then say that it was safe to leave.
Hours crawled by, Bulma helped the priestesses to treat the wounded as best she could. She was exhausted, but couldn’t sleep. Every time she thought she might be able to get some rest, someone, or a group of someones, would fly overhead and send the people sheltering in the palace into a panic.
They were definitely from the Frieza Force, Bulma could tell by their armor. Warlords, she guessed, here to kick over a planet of people who couldn’t defend themselves. Occasionally, someone would stop and scan the palace from the air, always too far away to pick out specific features. They probably could have annihilated the city with another bomb, Bulma didn’t think they would, not if planets like this were worth a fortune in slaves.
The sun came up. No Vegeta.
The priestesses gathered in the main hall to discuss what to do, and Bulma found herself included despite being a stranger and an alien. Every course of action seemed grim. There were too many wounded to realistically evacuate. The nearest city was a long walk through open territory with nowhere to hide. They didn’t have any weapons.
“How did you kill Qjaah?” Bulma asked the women, looking between them. She was hugging herself with both arms, worried and deep in thought.
“Poison,” said one of the priestesses. “Knives in the dark.”
“There were only three of them before,” said another.
Three people to conquer an entire planet. It seemed like overwhelming numerical inferiority to Bulma, but she supposed that Vegeta had tried it with two and only barely failed.
“How many of them do you think there are?” someone was asking.
“A hundred, at least. More. Did you see all the ships?” someone else was answering.
“This isn’t supposed to be happening, Frieza is dead.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Are they going to take us away?”
“I would kill myself before–”
There was a commotion outside, and Bulma saw someone land on the courtyard gate. Her stomach twisting when it became obvious that whoever it was too big to be Vegeta. Another figure followed, and then another. The thing that Bulma found oddest was that they didn’t announce themselves or make demands. They just walked in like they owned the place.
The leader was tall, broad shouldered, with darkly purple skin. Instead of hair, a mass of writhing tentacles grew from his scalp. Only four fingers on each hand, and like Zarbon had, he was wearing a cape that reached nearly to his ankles. It was hard to call it, but Bulma thought he looked physically similar to the corpse Vegeta had pointed out as Qjaah. The same species, maybe.
He was followed by dozens of aliens, more than a hundred in total by the time they had all landed. Including some of the ones who looked completely human. Others were insect-like, aquatic, bestial, all of them different from each other. It would have been fascinating, if they weren’t dangerous murderers, and the most interesting thing of all was that one of them was piloting some kind of robotic suit, a thirty-foot tall mech, and Bulma had to pry her eyes off it.
The leader looked around the people cowering on the palace grounds. The injured, the women and children. He gestured to his lieutenants with one hand.
“We’ll get the base set up here,” he said. “Clear this rabble out. Kill anyone who can’t work.”
Bluma clenched her fists, helplessly furious, but she stormed out of the palace’s main building and down the pathway towards the leader. Someone pointed her out to him and he looked up as she approached.
“Hey–!”
It was all she got out. His hand flashed out and struck her across the face. Bulma saw white, and the blow threw her off her feet, spinning her down onto the cobblestones. She cracked her chin on them, and the wind flew out of her lungs.
He put his foot on her and rolled her onto her back. She could barely breathe, choking on the air, and she felt like a ragdoll, unable to move her arms. Heat radiated across her face where the blow had connected, blood dripped down her chin. In a sense she supposed she was lucky that he hadn’t punched her head off.
The alien in the cape leaned down over her, he chuckled. “You were saying something, bitch?”
“I–” she couldn’t get the rest out, and she gasped and coughed for air.
The alien gestured and two of the others seized her and hauled her to her feet, holding her by both arms, for all that mattered. She wondered what they thought she was going to do. Being upright helped, and she took a deep breath, and then another.
“I know–”
He gripped her by the hair and forced her to look up at him. “What do you think you know?”
“I know where Vegeta is,” Bulma said, forcing the words out.